This was where the legendary Joan of Arc met King Charles VII.

As we spent a few days driving around the French countryside, we were greeted with fields after fields of wild orange poppies.

One of our favorite gardens in France!

We drove about 1.5 hours from Angers to The Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud. The abbey is a reminder of another way of life altogether. Founded in 1611, Fontevraud was one of the largest monastic complexes in the western world. King Richard the Lion Heart was buried here, and four daughters of Louis XV were brought up in this convent .

We’re back in Angers to visit our family. It was so nice to see everyone again, but we did miss Vi, who’s living in China right now.

Being a big fan of the Regency period literature, Minh Chau was very happy to see Hyde Park, where the gentlemen and ladies in her novels would enjoy an evening stroll, and one of the heroines would occasionally lose a hat or glove to the Serpentine to add some drama…

One cannot be in London and fail to see to city’s strong embrace of the arts. The museums and theaters were certainly the highlights of our trip. We saw the musical The Phantom of the Opera on Wednesday night, and it made us smile for days after. The show was magical!

We didn’t allow the English weather to put a damper on our traveling. That meant…ducking in Westminster Abbey and the National Gallery when it’s pouring rain, and enjoying the moist air & mingling sunshine as we strolled from Big Ben to Trafalgar Square.

We’re saying hello to summer by getting ourselves on the first flight to London as soon as Minh Chau’s school year ended!

Our trip ended with Nijo Castle.

Time seemed to slow down as we became conscious of each treasured moment.

The Philosopher’s Path is a pleasant stone path that follows a canal, lined by hundreds of cherry trees. The path gets its name due to Nishida Kitaro, one of Japan’s most famous philosophers, who was said to practice meditation while taking this path on his daily commute to Kyoto University. Needless to say, we were not doing much philosophizing while these shots were taken.

“Pink cloud of blossoms
Punctuating turquoise sky
How my heart flutters…”

–Minh Chau’s impromptu haiku